


mamiya to yuuri

by orphan_account



Category: Messiah Project - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Canon, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-08
Updated: 2018-05-14
Packaged: 2019-03-15 08:33:44
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 8,426
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13609569
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: if the temporary messiah assignments had been the permanent assignments : canon divergent following the events of Eisei: an introspection of Mamiya's character and the possibilities of being permanent messiahs with Yuuritakes symbolism from Melville's Moby Dick and Greek mythology, chiefly





	1. Prologue

 

            The fake partnerships lasted only twelve days. Each night passed showed some different phase of the moon ; it had passed from a new moon to a quarter, waxing moon over those twelve days and nights. The increments of the moon’s travel across the trajectory of the sky and the increments of its transformation blessed blossoming, waxing relationships along with itself. While the stars barely moved from their positions – perched, the moon glided along as by the strings of violins weeping in rejoice. Hollowed, hallowed dust and ashes upon that surface remained untouched and the thin, thin atmosphere not yet breathed. Vibrations of sound did not disturb those grounds, but the bombardment of light shone in astounding brightness back. The earth’s shadow crept away. The atmosphere was dancing.

            Four individuals stood, then, before the few steps that platformed Kamikita’s stance. Ariga, Shirasaki, Yuuri, and Mamiya stood in stiff formation ; all of them had lost sleep from the taxation of the partnerships.

            At Kamikita’s word, they packaged their tire in the back of their minds. And, then, they forgot about tire. The partnerships were temporary ; the reality of their lack of finality had yet to sink into their minds, however. Each had treated their temporary messiah as someone with whom to cooperate and build genuine rapport. Behind them, Kaidou and Mitsumi observed the moments before the breaking of the partnerships and likened it to the approaching promise of their own graduation and their own separation. Their eager expectance of their graduation made lighter the end of the partnerships. Left in the future were greater opportunities.

            There were differences in body language between the four cadets. Three of them refrained from betraying an inch of their anxiety ; Yuuri moved ever so slightly. Kamikita was analyzing their expressions keenly.

            “Shirasaki and Ariga.” All four broke stance. “Yuuri and Mamiya.”


	2. 一

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Talk not to me of blasphemy, man; I'd strike the sun if it insulted me. For could the sun do that, then could I do the other;”
> 
> Melville's Moby Dick

 

            Mamiya rested on top of the covers of his bed. Yuuri mirrored him on the opposite bed.

            The beds had distinct headboards throughout all of the rooms. One bed stood higher from the floor ; its headboard was a curling meeting of white haloing the pillows. Its comforters were lighter : its mattress softer. The other bed rested closer to the floor ; its headboard was simple black – as if replicating iron – with a firmer mattress such as a bedrock. The Church’s metaphor extended throughout all of Maru. Mamiya understood keenly why Yuuri held the white bed and why he held, in his possession, the black bed. Deep in the pit of his stomach, he felt sickened. Nearer the surface, though, he was relieved at how comfortable it felt. He could never belong in that white bed out of a mixture of every circumstance that built into his current position and his own guilt-ridden choices.

            Yuuri had reacted to the solidification of their partnership so much better than Mamiya had expected. He had always assumed in a nagging manner that Yuuri’s acceptance of their partnership and their newfound comfort had been products of Yuuri’s realization that the partnership was, indeed, temporary. Yuuri would have talked the circumstance out in so much volume to Haruto that he would lose himself to the certain future that he would be switched to be messiahs with Shirasaki. It would be an expected consolation for Yuuri to take. But the permanent assignments seemed to take no greater toll on Yuuri than the relief of having a concrete future rather than the unpredictability of SAKURA for which to account.

            They had not spoken to each other since the permanent messiahs had been announced. Neither had anything to say. They were given the rest of the day off along with Ariga and Shirasaki ; missions would begin at dawn tomorrow or, perhaps, before the dawn. Mamiya heard Yuuri’s heartbeat from the other bed ; it was rushed and lively. It reminded Mamiya of the piano that often accompanied his violin. Yuuri had long fingers, too. They usually swept over a keyboard, but Mamiya could envision them sweeping over the white and black keys of the piano : making their way up and down scales of major chords and occasionally deviating in melody to the accidentals reminiscent of minor keys - a small recognition to where Mamiya lie. Mamiya did prefer major scales. He liked the soft melodies of Beethoven as they could drift from piano and the lively intricacies of Rachmaninov. Tchaikovsky had major melodies that stole breath from listeners. But, on the occasion, there was a minor key that swept Mamiya back to the yellow-tinted shadows of his own existence : dark beiges and desaturated yellows and, always, charcoals and muddy colors and blacks. Yuuri was cleaner than that ; he very clearly echoed the pristine qualities of pianos. Mamiya soaked the shades of the violin’s wood into his own starkness.

            Mamiya’s favorite piece was Venetianisches Gondellied ; the melody of Mendelssohn struck deep within him. In minor key, it held haunting qualities. Along its right hand melody, Mamiya heard the perfect harmonies of the odd numbered notes : the dotted quarter notes playing three-halfs, the dotted half notes playing three, the triplets. The six-eighths counting could be reduced to three-fourths in a waltz of a variation. Mamiya enjoyed playing waltzes for all of their sweeping movements heard in the notes regardless of the physical motion accompanied. Waltzes could be proud or hidden. And Venetianisches Gondellied was hidden. The trills reminded Mamiya of withdrawal, withdrawal, and then further internal search. It was a piece of shadowed gild.

            But it was a piano piece, and Yuuri could play it, surely.

            Mamiya rolled onto his side towards Yuuri ; Yuuri had turned away from him to stare at the wall some minutes back. Yuuri was not wearing his messiah coat ; the uniform was draped over the white headboard. He wore, only, now, dark jeans and a dark t-shirt with long sleeves. His bare feet hung over the edge of the bed.

            If SAKURA had never picked up on Yuuri and he had never been enrolled in Maru, he could have lived perpetually ; Mamiya was certain that Yuuri prior to SAKURA had been someone that he would have passed in the streets without noticing. Yuuri, likely, would have never noticed him of any interest. That lack of interest and lack of vendetta would have granted him such life. But, in Maru, Yuuri was undeniably tied to an object of Mamiya’s soft mistrust. He hated to see Yuuri stained so.

            Yuuri rolled over in bed and caught his gaze. “Ah,” he said, his lips curling into a gentle smile, “there you are.”

            Mamiya felt himself smiling, too. “Was I lost?”

            Yuuri made a show of thinking it over. “Perhaps from me. What are you thinking?”

            “A lot,” Mamiya replied, truthfully : vaguely. The vague truth protected him so well from the curiosity of Yuuri and the consequence of full truth. He wondered, often, if Yuuri considered omission to be a form of lying.

            Yuuri hummed ; he drew his legs up and curled into a ball on the bed. “You ought to write me a book on all of the things that you think.”

            “A book?”

            “Yes.” Yuuri was looking at him with a strange expression that left Mamiya feel unpleasantly victimized and exposed.

            The feeling remained for some minutes. Mamiya was a deer in headlights in regards to Yuuri. There were ties between them that had suddenly been unearthed ; there was little hesitation between them. However, the absence of hesitation did not transition their communication skills into admirable quality. Vague response and commentary dominated their speech towards each other.

            “Are you going to bed soon?” Yuuri asked him.

            “I’m going to bathe first.”

            “May I go before you?”

            “Sure.”

            And Yuuri rose from the bed and disappeared into their bathroom. The door closed, though Mamiya did not hear the lock click. He slumped back on his bed, exhausted from Yuuri’s examination. The other was smart, and Mamiya desperately hoped that Yuuri would never be so smart as to understand or suspect any of Mamiya’s intentions or background. That was something private. But Mamiya had thinking to do about Quantum Cat and about SAKURA and about his parents and about Yuuri. SAKURA had always been something that he could conceal himself within ; he could never be forced to affiliate, as an ally, with another terrorist organization again. That had been an option from the start. It was not until the finality of his messiah that he was granted restitution. And, restitution being so foreign as a viable option, Mamiya, now, had so many more variables to consider in his decision. It would take weeks.

            He wondered how long it would be before Yuuri started asking questions seriously. Yuuri had asked about his past before, but he was so quickly willing to not push for answers. Even now, he seemed to be thinking on something and refraining from asking. Mamiya dreaded when he’d be faced with the pressure of genuine confrontation. And before or after the point of genuine confrontation, Mamiya did not know when Yuuri would begin to initiate the physical interactions of being each other’s messiahs. There was only so much time that Mamiya had, and it drove him to anxious fright. He had yet to understand whether or not having Yuuri as his messiah was a good or bad thing.

            When Yuuri came from the bath an hour later, he had already used the hairdryer to dry his hair. The ends were still damp, though, and his hair hung in messy waves. Mamiya purposefully looked away when Yuuri began to dress himself. He pushed himself from his bed and towards the bathroom. He shut the door behind him, and he locked it. The security of not being interrupted in his thoughts reassured him, and he hoped that Yuuri would not notice it being locked.

            After his own bath, Yuuri was lying on his bed again, though underneath the covers. He was on his side facing Mamiya’s bed. He sat up at Mamiya’s entrance.

            “Do you think they’ll have us on a solo mission tomorrow?” Yuuri asked him.

            Mamiya got dressed in his pajamas carefully. “I suppose. They’ll want to see our dynamic without Ariga and Shirasaki.”

            Yuuri sighed. “I hope Mamoru’s alright.”

            Mamiya glanced at Yuuri for only a moment, and Yuuri did not catch his gaze. “I’m sorry,” Mamiya, then, responded quietly. “I know that you wanted Shirasaki.”

            “No,” Yuuri disagreed. “Well, you’re right. I did. But I don’t anymore.”

            Mamiya smiled gently. “It’s alright.”

            “No,” Yuuri insisted. “I’ve learned some things. And I’m sorry that I broke your trust with Tendou.”

            “It’s fine,” Mamiya accepted after hesitation. He began moving the covers back from his bed. “But it’s late.” He hurriedly turned off of the light. Settling in the bed was reassuring ; the blankets over him were just heavy enough to lend him the sensation of protection.

            In the darkness, Yuuri continued to seek him. “Mamiya?” Mamiya remained silent, unsure how to answer. “You know we’ll be messiahs permanently.”

            “Yes,” Mamiya, finally, said.

            “For the rest of our lives, we’ll be depending on one another.”

            Mamiya swallowed bile in his throat. He wondered just how long they would live if it meant depending on one another. Quite soon, he would be letting Yuuri down. Quite soon, if Yuuri’s statement were true, he would end Yuuri’s life. It was something so incredibly bitter to imagine.

            “You don’t have to stay over there.”

            “I’m comfortable.”

            Yuuri did not continue speaking afterwards, but Mamiya could feel the discontent from Yuuri’s side of the room. The time he had to think was so short. Staring into the darkness, Mamiya wondered if there was a point of bothering to think it through.

 


	3. 二

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "We, the killers, seek meaning in the depths even as the depths look back and see in their murderers nothing but an inconsequential speck."
> 
> Melville's Moby Dick

 

            Mamiya existed in a space that was five hundred miles away from Yuuri. On the banks of where he stood, there was tempest and rage. In himself, the shrine there was closed off to him and left him neither externally, nor internally existing but in between the layers in a place where no other seemed to exist alongside him. Yuuri, five hundred miles across the ocean, was in a place of calm and quietude and the constant reassurance of good weather yet to come.

            Yuuri was sleeping in the other bed. His face, beautifully white, was pressed into the blankets in the calm currents of slumber. His hair was fuzzed with sleep and seemed to stick with static to the covers. His breathing was ever shallow. Mamiya stood above him, wanting to reach out and wake the other. And they were by that ocean. Where Haruto died would also be where Mamiya would die, Mamiya was sure. In those crashing waves and in that tempest, no boat could navigate to the shore ; instead, he would be tossed from the boat and left to drown amongst the dark waters in the pale foam of the sea.

            Yuuri stirred underneath the covers. Mamiya flinched back from the other but could not direct his feet away. When Yuuri turned over, Mamiya felt sickened the instant that Yuuri’s eyes fluttered to meet Mamiya’s own gaze. Yuuri seemed not to startle at Mamiya’s presence.

            “Good morning,” Yuuri whispered ; his voice was scratchy with sleep, and it sounded unearthly to Mamiya’s ears. It was wind-whipped and chilled by that cool air.

            “Good morning,” Mamiya replied. He knew that he should leave that entrancing side and resolve himself to further that distance between them.

            “What time is it?”

            “It’s six.”

            Yuuri sighed and nestled further below the blankets. “How are you already up?”

            “I never got to sleep,” Mamiya confessed.

            The entire night, he had listened closely to Yuuri’s heartbeat as it fluctuated through the dreams and depths of sleep that Yuuri enjoyed so peacefully. He had seen the white pallor of Yuuri’s face so dim in the dark of their room : lit only by the soft background light of the computer around the corner from their beds. Yuuri had begun to mumble in his sleep, but all Mamiya had distinguished as a word was ‘ocean’ as mumbled with a thudding heart and sweating feet and hands.

            “You should have woken me,” Yuuri mentioned. “We could have talked.”

            Mamiya shrugged, now drawing away. He moved backwards to his own bed ; feeling his knees hit the mattress, he sat down : gaze averted to the shoes he tugged onto his feet. “There wasn’t anything to talk about.”

            Yuuri sighed. There was hesitation, but Yuuri, then, drew himself from his bed. His nightshirt was fit for a child. It exposed his lower stomach and his hipbones in a milky expanse that was swallowed thereafter by his dark sweatpants. His feet were bare against the cool floor ; Yuuri always seemed so comfortable to kick his shoes and socks off. It seemed to transport him to somewhere else that seemed all the more bearable to be, though Mamiya could never join him there. Mamiya could barely join him even when they shared the same space.

            “There’s always something to talk about,” Yuuri answered. He crossed the room and sat beside Mamiya, leaning in with childish, sleepy glee. “You could tell me about yourself or I could tell you about myself.”

            “What would you want to know?”

            Yuuri hummed. “How do you write your name?”

            “Eh?”

            “Well,” Yuuri pulled back and fell to sprawl across Mamiya’s bed. “I never actually looked through SAKURA’s system for your information. I guess I didn’t care enough.”

            The words hit Mamiya somewhere around the wrists and in the neck and at the ankles : constricting around him. It spoke in clear sense to him that Yuuri would be so disinterested. Yuuri did not spend the nights staring at him and wondering his every motive and his every potential reaction to the clear truth. Yuuri did not ponder the best way to betray those closest to him : Shirasaki and his hopeful future in SAKURA. Yuuri had no worries to shove him even when he wanted to lie down and let it all rain down upon him.

            “It’s written with ‘space’ and ‘shrine,’” Mamiya informed him.

            “Oh?” Yuuri mumbled. “I always heard it as ‘integrity.’ But the shrine fits you, I think.”

            “Does it?”

            “You’re very introverted. You think a lot, but you never say much.”

            “I never know how to express myself.”

            Yuuri was quiet for a moment. Mamiya hunched further.

            “And… your given name?”

            “Oh,” Mamiya exclaimed. “I’m not sure that I’m comfortable…”

            “That’s alright,” Yuuri assured him. Mamiya was not looking at his face, afraid of the expression that he would find there. “What are the kanji?”

            “Star,” Mamiya answered, “and ‘cheap.’”

            But can’t ‘ren’ be read as ‘honest?’”

            “I don’t think that’s how it should be read,” Mamiya quietly replied. “It’s cheap, or it’s suspicion.”

            “Suspicion?” Yuuri echoed. “No, that doesn’t fit you. I like ‘honest.’”

            Mamiya choked on his breath ; his lungs were constricted, and his heart was hammering. He felt the tightness in his chest constrict at his lungs and try to compress his heart into still, still submission. The fluttering in his stomach threatened to come up his throat. Every inch of his body trickled in hot shame. Breathing steadily, he tried to picture himself as Yuuri perceived him. There was a quiet, shadowed figure standing in a corner with no baggage to attach itself to him or to be dragged down by : only pure opportunity. Mamiya hated that figure with his entire being.

            “I suppose,” Mamiya said aloud.

            “Mamiya,” Yuuri said, then. Mamiya turned to regard Yuuri from his side. “Is there something bothering you?”

            Mamiya hesitated. “You’re not telling me yours,” he lied. Internally, he burned as if over the eternally burning fire without light.

            Yuuri sat up, getting close to Mamiya ; Mamiya leaned away to increase their distance. “Well, Yuuri is obvious. It’s ‘distance’ and the counter.”

            Mamiya nodded. “It suits you,” he quietly commented. Yuuri was always so far from him. “And your given name?”

            “Kaito.”

            “Ah,” Mamiya interrupted, smiling. “‘Ocean’ and ‘to soar,’ right?”

            Yuuri shook his head, along with the foundations of Mamiya’s world. “It’s the kanji for the Huai River in China. And ‘to’ is the Chinese constellation for the dipper.”

            Mamiya startled, physically flinching from Yuuri and his eyes gazed upon Yuuri with feverish fear. “Eh?” he shivered from the shock of those words.

            Suddenly, that ocean between them solidified. Where Mamiya was so traditional in his roots and his ties, Yuuri was now an entire body of water away from him in a different country on a different land mass : so unreachable across the gap. Yuuri's Chinese and his Japanese clashed so awfully against one another.

            “Mamiya?” Yuuri questioned worriedly.

            “It’s nothing,” Mamiya assured him after a heavy breath. “I… hadn’t expected.”

            “‘Ocean’ and ‘to soar’ would be a pretty name,” Yuuri mused, seemingly trying to draw a response from Mamiya.

            Mamiya gave into the bait. He struggled to conceal himself around Yuuri, and it frightened him his attraction to such a disinterested party. “I always fancied you a Perdix.”

            “Perdix?” Yuuri repeated, confused. “I don’t understand.”

            “Didn’t you take literature in school?”

            Yuuri pouted, but he chuckled, too. “I was never very good at understanding profound literature.”

            At this, Mamiya smiled, also. “Too into computers and math?”

            Yuuri laughed. “Computers. Mamoru was always good at math, though. He loved calculus : all the derivatives and economics and those awful radicals. But he hated arithmetic, and I loved arithmetic.”

            “You liked arithmetic?”

            “It’s simple.”

            Mamiya sighed in exasperating, still smiling. “No one likes arithmetic,” he chided.

            Yuuri giggled childishly, thoroughly enjoying the banter. “I do,” he stressed. “Besides, Mamoru tried to join my Chemistry class because he saw some chemistry textbooks with calculus in them.”

            “Did you have better scores?”

            “Well,” Yuuri seemed to get lost in the past. “I wasn’t very good at chemistry, either. I thought there would be more math : not entropy and dilutions. And labs. But he was so upset when he realized that the only usage of calculus was in a single chapter on absorbance that our teacher rushed through.”

            “I was always better at literature,” Mamiya admitted. “I took geometry, and that was the only math that I understood.”

            “Oh, proofs,” Yuuri bemoaned. “Mamoru loved those. Defining triangles and squares and heptagons. SAS and AAS and ASA and all of the other theorems for triangles.”

            “Those were the only theorems for defining a triangle.”

            Yuuri caught his eye. “I can understand how you’d be a geometry person.”

            Mamiya was suddenly confused by Yuuri’s tone shift. “Is that so?”

            “You’re very invested in tangibility, aren’t you?” Mamiya found himself so profoundly moved that he could not answer. Yuuri was giving him a feather soft smile that he thoroughly wished to become lost in, if he could ever reach it. “But Perdix?”

            “Perdix,” Mamiya agreed, tearing his gaze from Yuuri’s pale face. “He was Dedalus’s nephew. He invented the compass, but Dedalus was so jealous for it that he shoved Perdix off of a cliff. But Athena saw the ingenious invention of Perdix and saw him fall ; she transformed him into a partridge. And that’s why the partridge is also a perdix.”

            “What happened to Dedalus?”

            “He was an ingenious inventor, as well. He built the Labyrinth to control the Minotaur, but he and his son Icarus became trapped within it. He built the flying apparatus of mechanical wings – feathered – to have himself and Icarus fly away from the Labyrinth and from Minos’s rule. But when they were flying away, Icarus flew too close to the sun for want of touching it ; his golden feathers melted, and he crashed to the sea.”

            Yuuri was very quiet. “And I’m Perdix?”

            Mamiya felt the boulder rolling down the mountain from it, but as he watched it roll down from his position on the top of the mountain, he could not help but marvel at its beauty of motion. He could pick it up again later, but he wanted to allow himself to reset. He wanted to tell Yuuri his deepest wish. Sisyphus would always begin again. Atlas would regain the sky later.

            “I like to think that you’re the one that lives.”

            Yuuri, still, was quiet. “Then, Haruto can be Icarus,” he breathed. “He was swallowed by the ocean.”

            Mamiya felt discomfort roll over him. “I didn’t mean to-”

            Yuuri shook his head. “That’s fine,” he told Mamiya. “I agree ; I like to think that I’m the one that lives.”

            “You could be Dedalus, if you wanted,” Mamiya offered.

            Again, Yuuri shook his head. “I don’t ever want to responsible for the death of people so important.”

            Mamiya felt Sisyphus place the boulder back on his shoulders ; Atlas shouldered the sky. “You won’t be responsible.”

… … …

            Mamiya and Yuuri were dimly lit into silhouette forms in one of the computer rooms of Maru : assigned to aid Ariga and Shirasaki on their infiltration mission into one of the government offices suspected of alliance with the Russian government and the encouraged assassination of Itou for political ties. Their suspected next target was the prime minister, and SAKURA’s cadets were all assigned, on some level, to the preservation of the current political figures of Japan and the opposition against both terrorist organizations and the wishes of the Russian Federation.

            “They’re doing alright,” Yuuri whispered to himself ; his eyes searched through the separate blocks of the security cameras. “Nothing. I guess my override is working.”

            Mamiya hummed in agreement ; he had noise cancelling earbuds in and was listening to the audio files from the recording of the security systems. They failed to cancel out the noise of the room that Mamiya was in, but they did an excellent job of amplifying all that could be heard through the recording. The hallways, except for the footsteps of Ariga and Shirasaki, were entirely silent.

            They had been informed by Ichijima that another graduate member of SAKURA had previously infiltrated the office under the alias of another government worker ; their task had been to secure the presence of incriminating files on the computer systems in the office. However, it was the task of the undergraduates to retrieve the files both to ensure the security of the graduate – as undergraduates were viewed as more greatly expendable – and to test the aptitude of the undergraduates. So far, it seemed that there were no hitches.  Ariga and Shirasaki entered the filing room and began shuffling through the cabinets and folders there.

            “Ah, Mamoru,” Yuuri whispered into his microphone. “Check the end computer. They wouldn’t put the files on the local domain, but there’s probably a hidden domain somewhere that we can scan for.”

            “Do you have the program to scan for it?” Shirasaki asked.

            “No,” Yuuri answered. “But I can tell you how to do it. It’ll leave a bit of evidence, but you can delete that later.”

            The line was silent for some time. “Is that the best option?” Ariga asked.

            “It won’t take very long unless their processing system is a waste of hardware,” Yuuri assured.

            “Fine,” Shirasaki sighed. “Ariga, keep looking.” Shirasaki sat at the end computer database and opened it. “Kaito, it has a security system. How do you want to bypass it?”

            Yuuri breathed out through his mouth in a huff ; he began reaching through his suitcase. “There’s… a list.”

            “A list?”

            “I’ve a list of recycled passwords. You can try to trick the system.”

            “… Oh?”

            “Well, I’ve had my own bias for years. The government doesn’t know what they’re doing. It uses password generators to eliminate human predictability in their passwords. However, they ignore computer predictability. And I know the generator that they use. So.”

            “Ingenious, Kaito.”

            “Ah, if it works.”

            Ariga cleared his throat pointedly.

            “Alright,” Kaito had a tendency to suck on his lip when he became engrossed in his work : usually work involving technology. Mamiya pressed the earbuds into his ears to try and erase the sounds distracting him so. “Alright. Here it is.”

            And Kaito ran off the passwords to Shirasaki, who inputted them with dutiful accuracy. At the end, Shirasaki took in a shaky breath before clicking to submit the passwords. There were moments of held breaths from all parties as the soft whirring of the machine thought through the inputted characters. And, then, there was the access.

            “Good work, Kaito,” Shirasaki praised.

            Yuuri hummed softly.

            “Oh!” Mamiya exclaimed.

            “Mamiya?” Yuuri questioned.

            Mamiya leaned over to Yuuri and pointed at the other’s screen in the one corner of the security camera’s footage. A worker was walking through the hallways, seemingly on his way to his work floor.

            “I’ll keep following him,” Mamiya explained. “Finish directing Shirasaki.”

            Yuuri slid into another chair to allow Mamiya better vantage of his screen, which Mamiya accepted. And as Mamiya took careful surveillance of the interloper, Yuuri continued to work with Shirasaki.

            After another forty minutes, Shirasaki had collected the hidden domain’s files on a bit of hardware that Yuuri had given him at some indeterminate point prior to the start of the mission. Ariga, himself, had found banking files that traced two key monetary exchanges with Russian parties that were not accounted for on SAKURA’s records. The man was still in the common work floor, plugging numbers into his work computer.

            “We’re coming back,” Shirasaki informed them, leaving the filing room with Ariga behind him. “Expect us in forty-five minutes.”

            “Good,” Yuuri sighed. “We’ll be waiting for you.”

            The line dropped between the two parties, and Yuuri shrugged off his headset and microphone. After a moment, Mamiya removed his earbuds.

            They sat in the dim lighting of the computer room, listening to the soft whirring of the computers and the consistent beeping of the monitoring systems. The security cameras blinked out as Yuuri’s infiltration program was canceled. The walls were devoid of projections, and it was just Mamiya and Yuuri there.

            “That was good,” Mamiya praised Yuuri, wanting the silence between them broken.

            Yuuri nodded listlessly ; he was staring into the space on the desk in front of his. His fingers fidgeted with the handle of his case. 

            “Yuuri?”

            “I was thinking.”

            “Oh?”

            “We all are going to need codenames and code words eventually like Kaidou-senpai and Mitsumi-senpai had. I think I’d like to be Perdix.”

            Mamiya breathed in deeply. He hoped that Yuuri would never be pushed to begin with. “That’s poetic for someone who doesn’t understand profound literature.”

            Yuuri smiled. “What are you going to have as yours?”

            Mamiya looked into the dark corners of the room, seeking an answer there. He felt his lies build up onto his person with great, heavy weight. He felt himself avoiding Yuuri’s suspicion and upset. He felt himself continuing to lie, and he decided to be honest for a moment as to the quality of his ugly character. “Jonah,” he decided. 

 


	4. 三

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Even though white is often associated with things, that are pleasant and pure, there is a particular emptiness about the color white. It is the emptiness of the white that is more disturbing, than even the bloodiness of red.”
> 
> Melville's Moby Dick

 

            Yuuri was drenched in white. Every inch of his body was painted with the starkness of things that were lifeless : snow, make-up, corpses. Where the sweeping brushes of his hair and his eyelashes, and the darkness of his eyes, cut into the stark, there were hollows to be seen in the dips of his countenance. His cheekbones seemed so prominent for the valleys of his cheeks to swoop into the curves of his pale lips. Mamiya was forever entranced and tormented by it. For someone so intrinsically beautiful to be partnered with someone with such an ugliness within them, Mamiya had to scoff at the workings of SAKURA. Yuuri was much better suited for Shirasaki ; Yuuri’s every denial of that stemmed from his determination to make his partnership with Mamiya into something that was more than a hindrance.

            Like a starved and crazed beast, some demon wreaked havoc in Mamiya at the thought of shattering that perfection. Somehow, hurting Yuuri seemed a greater crime than abandoning himself. Mamiya wondered if he should kill Yuuri to make it all stop ; in fact, he yearned to see some smudge of red stain onto Yuuri and reward him with the sense that, finally, he would no longer be taunted – consciously or unconsciously – by the other. It began to haunt his dreams : shooting Yuuri, scratching Yuuri with some poisonous blade, drowning him in their own bathtub, shoving him off of one of the roofs during their next mission. He would relish in the flash in Yuuri’s eyes as he realized that the one he trusted most betrayed him with the most satisfying rush.

            But, then, Mamiya would wake from his daydream. And he’d look up and see Yuuri standing or sitting not so far from him, and he would desire all the more to be able to reach out and anchor himself to Yuuri in the midst of his tempest.

            Mamiya had seen so much death in his lifetime that he wondered if he would be immune to Yuuri’s. He wondered if Yuuri’s death would be like any other’s. He feared that, when killing Yuuri, Yuuri would look like any other dying man. If his corpse would be just as limp and cold before becoming just as stiff. His parents had melded in with the burning crowd so much that Mamiya could not even distinguish the bodies. And it sickened Mamiya to think of Yuuri as someone else to cast away into a grave or into an urn with the ritual rites having lost meaning.

            The Atlantic’s waters melded into the Pacific’s, as both did into the Arctic. There were no lines or immediate shifts. Both held the water of the world swelling in them ; Yuuri’s blood, ultimately, had a different variation of the same genes that were even in Mamiya’s own blood. Mamiya was curious to see how their blood would mix. He was curious to see Yuuri stained dark.

            Increasingly, it became apparent that the way to reach Yuuri would be to tear into him with jagged nails and drag him down from his lofty perch as the perdix and to the darkness where Mamiya wallowed and rotted.

 


	5. 四

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ”Frightened Jonah trembles and summoning all of his boldness to his face, only looks so much the more a coward."  
> Melville's Moby Dick

 

            Mamiya glanced at Yuuri where the other sat to his left. Yuuri had his hands folded on the table as he hunched over with his hair hanging in a curtain to shield Mamiya from following his gaze and seeing whatever he was seeing. His body posture was so stiff, and Mamiya supposed that it was because Ariga and Shirasaki were sitting in front of him. Yuuri always behaved stiffly around Shriasaki in a unique way that left Mamiya keenly understanding that he was on the other end of the rope from where Yuuri was dangling. Above Yuuri was salvation and life and Shirasaki ; below Yuuri was death and fall and Mamiya.  Mamiya shifted in his seat, gaining the attention of Yuuri, who turned to him and regarded him with shining eyes. Mamiya avoided their regard, and Yuuri turned his head back to the front of the room.

            The briefing on the known activities of Quantum Cat was information that Mamiya already knew inside and out. He knew of the plots and explanations behind each movement. Meanwhile, Shirasaki and Ariga and Kamikita, as well as other cadets, debated the validity of theories and counteractions. Yuuri sat silently, and Mamiya could not tell what the other was thinking. His heartbeat was calm.

            Mamiya wondered, then, what kind of relationship they would have if it all was reversed : if Yuuri had his hearing. Mamiya wondered if there was a sound to a broken heart or if it was simply silent. Then, upon reflection, he pondered without abandon if that was why Yuuri was so quiet.

            “Mamiya.”

            Mamiya startled in his seat. “I’m sorry,” he apologized. Kamikita was watching him expectantly.

            “Pay attention.”

            Mamiya bowed his head slightly to acknowledge. He felt Yuuri watching him.

            As Kamikita continued in the presentation, Yuuri moved his chair so slightly to be closer to Mamiya. He leaned over to Mamiya, resting his shoulder against Mamiya’s. In a low voice, he whispered, “What’s distracting you?”

            “It’s nothing.”

            Yuuri gave him a pointed look. “Mamiya, tell me the truth.”

            Mamiya inhaled deeply and exhaled breathily. “A lot.”

            Yuuri moved further to drape his side against Mamiya. “Tell me.”

            “Yuuri.”

            Mamiya and Yuuri glanced up to find Kamikita scowling at the pair of them once more.

            “Sorry,” Yuuri apologized, moving away from Mamiya.

            As Yuuri moved away, Mamiya became aware of Ariga and Shirasaki watching them. Shirasaki’s gaze was fixated on Yuuri, asking silently to him a multitude of questions that Mamiya could never answer and never understand. Ariga seemed to be watching Mamiya, and Mamiya met his gaze evenly. It was not long before Ariga turned away : disinterested.

            “Mamiya, come along.”

            “Eh?”

            Yuuri was standing and walking past Mamiya to the aisle. His hand reached out and took Mamiya’s arm. “Come along,” he repeated.

            The pressure on his arm was steady and yet needy, and Mamiya rose from his chair to follow after Yuuri ; he was aware of the rest of the room’s residents watching their every move. Yet, Yuuri continued to lead them outside of the hall.

            “Yuuri, where are we going?”

            “Out.”

            “We don’t have clearance for that.”

            Yuuri offered no response, only leading them towards the elevator to leave through the barber shop. At Yuuri’s input, there was a register of the motion without clearance. The same occurred when Mamiya checked himself. Nevertheless, the elevator opened, and Yuuri pulled them into it.

            “We still have our uniforms on,” Mamiya reminded.

            Yuuri moved his hands to his neck, tugging at his collar to unbutton it. He took off his uniform coat in a fluid motion, revealing the plain attire of all black underneath. He looked to Mamiya expectantly. Slowly, Mamiya unbuttoned his collar and ran the zipper down on his coat, shrugging it off of his shoulders. He was dressed similarly to Yuuri, but he realized that he was wearing a white long-sleeve, marking him distinct from Yuuri. The fabric, in the dimly lit elevator and against Yuuri’s own darkness, seemed to glow unethereally.

            The elevator opened into the faux bathroom, and Yuuri opened the door. The sunlight in the shop hit them brightly. Hayashi and Yaegashi were in the process of trimming a customer’s hair, allowing Mamiya and Yuuri to slip out the front door without direct confrontation. They would face the consequences of their unauthorized leave later. Though, Mamiya supposed, SAKURA could not punish them on the accusation of independent work ; it looked, surely, as though they had similar intent and motivation.

            They ended up at an old building that had been abandoned with demolition scheduled in three weeks according to the sign plastered to the entrance of the building. The sign had said something about insecure foundations. Inside, the floor had been torn up and the walls stripped. Barely anything other than bare structure was left, yet it seemed comfortable for the pair of them to hide. Yuuri led them into a stairwell and sat on one of the steps, leaving Mamiya to stand awkwardly. Mamiya’s boots stuck to the floor with all of the clay of the leftover floor layering.

            “Yuuri?”

            “I want you to tell me what’s been bothering you.”

            Mamiya remained silent.

            Yuuri huffed, brushing his hair back. It was a day when Yuuri had not relied upon hair products to keep the shape, and the curtain was brushed back behind his ear while retaining silken sheen and movement. They had taken off their gloves during their walk to the building, and Yuuri began trailing his pale and thin fingers through his hair : toying with it and stroking through it.

            “You’ve been so silent,” Yuuri told him. “I don’t know how to look at you. I thought that you were comfortable with me like when we were on your bed together going over those documents. But that was months ago, and you’re still more distant than ever.”

            “That’s,” Mamiya trailed off. “I’m sorry, Yuuri.”

            “Have I done something?”

            Mamiya shook his head. “It’s nothing.”

            Yuuri frowned. “You say that whenever there’s something you want to say.”

            “You have done nothing to sour my opinion of you,” Mamiya assured.

            “Then, what has?”

            “Nothing.”

            “Mamiya.”

            “My opinion hasn’t changed of you since I met you.”

            Yuuri looked decently unsettled. “But… well, your first opinion wasn’t too forgiving, was it? I was awful.”

            “No,” again, Mamiya shook his head. “I didn’t hold that against you.”

            “Even when I knocked your violin to the floor?”

            “Even then.”

            Yuuri moved little. His eyes still searched Mamiya’s face. “So, what is your opinion of me?”

            Mamiya shifted in discomfort. “Yuuri, I-”

            “You’re being awful.”

            Mamiya stopped speaking immediately, feeling the criticism strike deep. He perceived Yuuri on the staircase, sitting, with his gaze hard and yet soft : asking and accusing. Mamiya felt the gun weigh heavy in its holster by its side.

            “Do you want to know what I think of you?” Yuuri asked, then.

            In a quiet gesture, Mamiya shook his head. “I don’t.”

            There was a lengthy pause. “I think of you as someone who’s not letting me be your messiah.”

            Mamiya frowned. “No, that’s-”

            “I’ve been begging you to let me help you and touch you and waiting for you to ask the same of me.”

            “There’s no need. It’s fine.”

            “There is a need,” Yuuri argued and stressed against him. “You keep yourself in a corner. I can’t reach you, and you don’t seem interested in ever letting me. Talk to me. What happened? What are you thinking about when you’re quiet?”

            Mamiya could not respond.

           

            Ten days later, they were assigned another solo mission. In the United Nations building, they crawled through the computer systems for any information regarding World Reforming : anything about SAKURA, anything with Ichijima’s name, anything about the Northern Alliance. Nearly the entire building was dark and quiet. Mamiya stood in the hallway outside, blending in with the pitch, keeping cover for Yuuri.

            “Mamiya,” Yuuri loudly whispered his name. Mamiya ducked into the room ; Yuuri was in the far corner. “There’s nothing here.”

            “There should be something regarding negotiations over disarmament.”

            “I know, but there’s nothing. Did they know that we were coming?”

            “They couldn’t have,” Mamiya answered. “They’re probably keeping things off of official computers so that, in case anyone came, they wouldn’t find anything.”

            Yuuri frowned. “But there’s really nothing. I can’t see any files that would have been opened even through connected devices. There were official processes for agreements that would need to be here.”

            Mamiya did not know how to respond. He heard nothing to indicate pending ambush. “We can log that in our report. Let’s go.”

            Yuuri nodded. As he packed up, he bent over the side of the chair to place his device back into its case. And in that moment, his back was turned from Mamiya. In that moment, Mamiya saw the opportunity blossom before him more beautifully than any sakura could. With quiet footsteps – ones that only he could hear, he approached Yuuri. Two desks away, he stopped. And he raised his gun to aim. At such moment, Yuuri righted himself in his chair and turned to stand. His dark eyes caught on Mamiya’s gun as a fish catches onto the hook of a patient fisherman. His lips, beautifully curved, were puffed open in shock like a gasping fish : snagged.

            “Mamiya?” he questioned breathlessly.

            “I’m sorry,” Mamiya apologized.

            “What?” Yuuri swallowed ; his hand made an embarrassing outstretch as if to approach Mamiya before curling back to Yuuri’s person. “Mamiya, what?”

            Mamiya faltered. “This was the best time,” his excuse sounded pitiful.

            Just barely visible in the light, Yuuri’s eyes were hesitant. “The best time for what?”

            Mamiya focused. “I am the leader of Quantum Cat,” he established.

He saw Yuuri pale further into the white of his countenance. He saw Yuuri’s body flinch. Yuuri’s shoulders tensed, and Mamiya almost heard the muscle ripping from the bone. The hand clutching the case’s handles was clenched tightly, and the other hand was shaking. Mamiya heard Yuuri’s breath catch and begin, without hesitation, the soft breathing of someone about to tip over the edge of a cliff : all holding breath while breathing through their lips. Slowly – the planetary motion through space as far Pluto revolves around the sun, Yuuri blinked away his gaze away from the gun. His eyes latched onto Mamiya’s : dark and reflecting the harsh light of the dim lights of the blue computer screens.

            “What?” Yuuri asked numbly.

            Mamiya watched him, anticipating sudden movement. When Yuuri continued to stare at him, he repeated, “I’m Quantum Cat. I’m Short Hair.” He could hear Yuuri’s heart thudding in his chest ; while it was not hurried or panicked, each beat seemed to thud with fists against Yuuri’s chest as if something within him had violated him and was banging to get out. It was the heart that kept urging life and motion while everything else in Yuuri shut down.

            “Mamiya,” Yuuri whispered into the air in a hush.  He set the case down on the desk. His fingers were trembling inside his gloves. “You’re SAKURA.”

            Mamiya swallowed the bile rising in his throat. “I was in SAKURA,” he accepted. He could hear his voice pitching and toning deeper. “But I am in Quantum Cat.”

            Yuuri seemed not to understand. “Mamiya,” he leaned forward in the chair and outstretched both arms towards Mamiya cautiously. Mamiya backed away skittishly, and Yuuri’s face betrayed bitter hurt.

            “I am going to kill you,” Mamiya stated. He heard those words stain into the carpet and lodge themselves beneath the fibers.

            Yuuri blinked at the words, transparently shaken. He rose from his chair, trembling over his entire body. He stumbled forward towards Mamiya, driving the other away even further. “Mamiya, wait,” Yuuri begged.

            Mamiya felt his hands shake in nervous ticks, and he could feel his finger jerking on the trigger. Yuuri saw it, too ; his eyes were glued to the gun and Mamiya’s finger on the trigger. Jerkily, Mamiya moved his finger off of the trigger. The movement terrified Yuuri, and his body jolted in terror of the anticipated shot. Upon the quietude, Yuuri relaxed ever slightly and advanced further.

            “Please, listen to me, Mamiya,” Yuuri whispered. “You haven’t let me help you.”

            “I don’t want help,” Mamiya replied coldly.

            “Is that why you’ve been hiding yourself away from me?”

            “It’s because there are things that I need to accomplish,” Mamiya answered. “SAKURA is the target.”

            “I’m not all of SAKURA,” Yuuri reminded him. “I’m someone separate.”

            “You are a part of the system. You willingly went into the system : after Shirasaki.”

            Yuuri paused. “I did.”

            Mamiya’s hands were shaking.

            Yuuri advanced a step forward. “You did, too. You tried to do something.”

            Mamiya placed his finger back onto the trigger. “It was worthless.”

            “You saved my life through it.”

            “But it didn’t mean anything.”

            “It meant that you were trying to be something valuable to SAKURA.” Mamiya’s glare deepened. “Everything went well, didn’t it?”

            Mamiya lowered the gun, and Yuuri visibly relaxed. But in that moment of relaxation, Mamiya took the advantage to fly at Yuuri and knock the other down. He dragged Yuuri onto the floor and stood above the other, gun swinging in a lose grip. Yuuri vainly tried to swipe up at Mamiya, but he received a shattering punch to his left cheekbone. Yuuri was left stained against the floor in a heap of melting black and white. Gravity was dragged Mamiya further down, and Mamiya responded by repeated slamming his fist against Yuuri. He heard himself begin to sob during some strike.

            And, fully vented, Mamiya raised the gun to Yuuri’s head. Yuuri was left without fight or defense. His face pressed to the floor, Mamiya heard Yuuri’s lungs aching and the soft chokes of sobs wrench from Yuuri’s throat through pained gasps out of parted lips. Yuuri’s body shook.

            “Mamiya,” Yuuri choked. He threw his head to stare up at Mamiya ; his eyes were red and wide in fright. His hands were shaking and twitching as they reached up to hold, with surprisingly gentility, Mamiya’s free hand. He pulled it closer to his face, pulling Mamiya down further, and pressed it to his cheek and lips. “Let me in. Talk to me.”

            “If you don’t understand still, there’s no point,” Mamiya spat.

            Yuuri drew in shaky breaths. “I’m trying,” he stressed. “I’m trying ; but I’m scared, and I’m worried.” His hands came around to hold Mamiya’s hands more weakly. Instead, it was soft pressure meant to encourage, not ensure. “I trust you.”

            “You shouldn’t.”

            Yuuri shook his head. “You’re my messiah.”

            Mamiya jerked his hand away, and Yuuri tried to follow with his own hands. Yuuri looked as if somewhere in the Pacific drowning into the tides. The white of his pallor jumped between the waves, horror growing and shading those areas. And Mamiya felt his entire soul rise up against that white, ready to purge it. “I am not that,” he declared.

            “I’m yours,” Yuuri retorted.

            In the ridiculous situation and under the pressure of the stress, Mamiya laughed. He felt his eyes burn. “I don’t have one,” he dismissed. His finger tightened on the trigger. His heart leapt at the thought of dark red staining white. “How am I salvageable?”

            Yuuri did not move, nor flutter. “There’s nothing to salvage,” Yuuri said, then, quietly. His eyes held Mamiya’s gaze with soft reassurance and sincerity. “I don’t think of you as that.”

            Bitterly, Mamiya jerked away. Yuuri began to sit up, but Mamiya hit him against the floor once more. “Don’t lie!” Mamiya shrieked. “Look at me. I’m worthless. There’s nothing here.” Yuuri watched him with terrified eyes. “There’s nothing!”

            “I see something,” Yuuri responded.

            “Some thing,” Mamiya stressed. “I’m not even worth the value of a person.”

            “I see someone,” Yuuri said, “who I want to help and who I want to ask for my help.”

            “I don’t want help,” Mamiya repeated.

            “Then, don’t ask me for my help. Ask me for time or care or to listen.” Mamiya did not move, and Yuuri’s eyes flickered briefly to the gun before back to Mamiya. “You’re not a fool, Mamiya,” Yuuri whispered. “Don’t do this.”

            “Wouldn’t I be more foolish to not follow through?”

            “Killing people is always foolish.”

            “But if I don’t kill you, then I won’t be even be worth my own word.”

            Yuuri swallowed. “Mamiya.” He seemed to be choosing his words very carefully to reach out to Mamiya.

            Mamiya backed away, and Yuuri craned his neck up. Gradually, he moved to sit. Mamiya held the gun by his side, his tortured and haunted eyes watching Yuuri’s every movement. Yuuri stood up from the floor and floated there for some moments. He moved to Mamiya and took the gun from Mamiya’s hands lightly, holstering it for Mamiya. It was the closest that they had been since Yuuri had sat on the bed beside him during their trial run as temporary messiahs. His height had only a couple inches over Mamiya, and Mamiya found himself glaring up through his eyebrows.

            “Talk to me,” Yuuri asked.

            “I am in Quantum Cat,” Mamiya restated. “My parents were terrorists, I was raised as a terrorist, and I, now, am a terrorist.”

            Yuuri stepped back from Mamiya marginally, giving the other space.

            “I don’t believe in the sentiments of SAKURA,” Mamiya stated.

            “Is Quantum Cat any more forgiving?”

            “It’s not that.” Mamiya appeared frustrated : unable to properly articulate. “SAKURA expects an erasure of my emotions and my individuality. I am a pawn to them. I am just another cadet.”

            “There’s comfort in being just another cadet,” Yuuri pressed. “There’s no expectation of you, Mamiya. I’m interested in you as an individual. I think that’s where the messiah system gets messed up. You think that there needs to be a grand savior. Mitsumi-san and Kaidou-san seemed to think that they needed to be together definitely. But I think that messiahs just need to see each other as persons : understand each other.”

            “It’s the opposite in Quantum Cat,” Mamiya replied.

            “And are you happier working in a place where no single person cares than in a place where I am?”

            “You’re not so important to me.” Mamiya’s words were painted with anger.

            Yuuri soothed him with calm, cold waters. “Let me be.”

            Mamiya swallowed ; he almost choked. And, in the smallest voice, he spoke his most denied truth : “I want you to be.”

 


	6. End

 

I've kinda come to hate this, so there won't be updates.

A lot of my time is being put into a 300+ page stageplay I'm writing for this verse now, so there's little time to compose short works. I expect to be on hiatus until midway through June.


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